Prism Art & Literary Magazine Winter 2016

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E // winter 2016 // v

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riptides

What is a Riptide? An overpowering current moving in the opposite direction of other currents. A strong influx of water pouring into an inlet or close to sandy shores, sweeping away all in its path from seaweed to boats. A current so strong it can oppose the might of the rest of the ocean. Unpredictable and unavoidable, at best, if one finds themselves in its midst yet terrifyingly captivating if one finds themselves as a spectator. A force that one can neither guide nor control. A force, well, simply put, of nature.

That is what has emerged from this edition, number 129, of Prism. Within the 40 pages that follow the contributors have created something that is, well, unpredictable and unavoidable at best, yet terrifyingly captivating all at once. Unpredictable, because not a single person could have predicted the shape this edition would take–and trust me we tried. Unavoidable because those persons who contributed their hard-work to make this edition possible are people who are close to you. They are your classmates, your roommates, your friends, and your siblings. They are your students and your TA’s. Your co-workers and that person you walk by everyday in thequad but to whom you never say hello. In some cases, they are your parents, in others they are your children. In some cases, they are you.

The art and literature in this edition, as usual, are some of the very best works from just a few of the extremely talented students at Oregon State University. Many of the pieces deal with that which is out of our hands, such as the passage of time, the choices of another, or the power that is nature. The beauty in this magazine comes from a place of solemnity which typically accompanies the winter months, but retains a sense of hope; as if Spring is just around the corner. Once again, I am honored to have the privilege to work with all of the talented individuals who brought their unique efforts together to make this possible. I invite you all the sit back, relax, and be swept up by the tide.

Thank you for reading and enjoy,

Darryl K. Oliver III Editor-in-Chief

Take a Breath, Breathe Easy ashley howarth

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prism magazine // winter 2016 // vol cxxix

Editor -in-Chief // darryl k. oliver iii Assistant Editor // nicholas browning Graphic Designer // tracy sokalski Digital Editor // devin curtis

Literature Board lyric spivey tessa barone patricia lin ethan heusser mitchell buechler marlena chan luke campbell whitney lauren han Art Board david tran chelsie gaither jynwaye foo yile tang Cover - fox, Shanna Roast back cover - wheat field, Vedanth Narayanan Prism Magazine Published by Orange Media Network Student Experience Center Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331

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1 Take a Breath, Breathe Easy, Ashley Howarth 4 Newport, Oregon, Hallie Sutton 5 Longing, Shanna Roast 6 The Picture, Aubrie Loden 7 Sleeves, Luke Campbell 8-9 Snacks, Jynwaye Foo 10-12 The Women Wearing Owl Masks, Nicholas Browning 13 Drift Creek Falls, Daniel Watkins 14 Biology Lesson, Aubrie Loden 15 Waves, Eric Callahan 16 untitled, Catherine Fitzsimmons 17 lean, Ethan Heusser 18 remember that place in the woods?

Bree Gillespie 19 untitled, Daniel Held 20-21 long way to go, kid, Skye Lyon 22 decisions, Mitchell Buechler 23 untitled, Alexandra May 24 flesh, Ethan Heusser 25 predator, Yuheng Zhao 26 dancer, Eric Callahan 27 lizards, fearless, Michael Henry Lonie, Lauren Freeman 28 untitled, Evelyn Janet Kritler 29 untitled, Gregory Heinonen 30 on the growing of potatoes, Ethan Heusser 31 hangnail, Aubrie Loden 32 untitled, Kody Kirkpatrick 33 todd, Shanna Roast 34 the dying of the year (october 2015), Michael Henry Lonie 35 The reincarnation of kurt cobain, Skye Lyon 36 lauren, Catherine Fitzsimmons 37 Coldchuck lake, Yuheng Zhao 40 end of the day, Zahra Mohammad Alnaser (541) 737-2253 prism@oregonstate.edu Printed by Lynx Salem OR

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Newport, Oregon HALLIE SUTTON

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Longing SHANNA ROAST

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The Picture

AUBRIE LODEN I want to be the picture in someone’s wallet The face behind the debit card Tucked away behind a fold Snuggled in a shirt pocket, Staying close to a heartbeat.

The one nose, The two ears, And two eyes, Peeking above a $5 bill.

A picture you wouldn’t sell for a million.

The girl you catch a peek at And smile while waiting for a receipt.

The colors that make you do a double take While fishing for that damn coupon.

I want to be the picture in someone’s wallet.

Not a double tap on Instagram.

Not a home screen.

Not a Facebook tag.

I want to be where no glitch, No dead battery, No incoming message Can take my eyes off yours.

Someone you carry with you Be with you in the largest cities Or just in your hands.

A photo so precious Its not allowed to collect dust.

Before it’s the only picture left of me, I want to be the picture in someone’s wallet.

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Sleeves

LUKE CAMPBELL

This is where you sit at 10 o’clock when the doors are unlocked; unlock the doors at 9:57; lift your chin and make sure to smile; let your hair cover your shoulders but get rid of your bangs; you have tattoos--show them off; roll your sleeves halfway up your forearm; now roll them to your elbow; learn the customer’s name-say it twice; when they leave say it again; don’t forget to write their number down and include the size of their tattoo on the orange form; when two people come at a time give more attention to the woman; when it is just a man make sure he sees your ring; your sleeves fell down--roll them back up; create a call list; they want more tattoos they just don’t know it yet; it’s okay to lean back in your chair when your boss walks by; keep the desk clean of any loose papers; keep the orange forms in your desk; keep your phone in your purse until there is no one in the lobby; don’t sing unless you’re alone; hide your stash in the drawer because the boss wouldn’t think to look there; your sleeves fell again--safety pin them in place; keep your hair out of your face and no matter what he tells you show off your left hand; don’t laugh at anyone’s tattoo--their life is different than yours; change the music every hour and a half; clean the window regularly so you can see outside; when the boss is gone share your stash with the artists; wash after you shake their hand; it’s okay to roll down your sleeves; file the orange forms in the drawer above your stash; lock the door before you leave.

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JYNWAYE FOO

Snacks

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The Women Wearing Owl Masks

nicholas browning The Women wearing owl masks were going to take Luke. They always took someone, and poor Luke had been marked for years.

Some days I’d daydream about rescuing him, whisking him so far away that the Ladies would never find us. But they would find us, and when they did they’d be laughing that laugh of theirs, a bellowing thing, like a boar’s cough. They knew where Luke was just as I knew where my foot was. Besides, I know Luke wouldn’t let me rescue him. For our people, duty was life. Even though the Women wearing owl masks had chosen him as their next, made him live each day in terror, an outcast among his own, Luke would do his duty. We were the Ladies’ keepers, and one of us always carried their mark.

“Evening Luke,” I said as my friend dragged his feet towards me. Black surrounded his eyes, clinging to a blood laced gaze.

He grunted a wordless reply, and I took no offense, knowing that if the Ladies had chosen me I would be far more uncivilized than this sad lad.

I, for better or worse, spent more time with Luke than anyone. The two of us were a Vigil pair, and watched together every night during the dead shift, when the world should be asleep. Each night we would march to the black pit, and witness the madness below.

A series of narrow, winding tunnels, illuminated by smoky torchlight, led us to our post. We spoke not a word. I’d learned long ago that Luke no longer enjoyed speaking.

When we were children, I’d never known a more carefree, kind-hearted fellow. But after the Ladies chose him, that bright spirit began to wane, a little dimmer each day. I think, if he could, if he hadn’t been chosen, he’d still

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be that child. So rather than force him to ignore me, or snarl biting replies, I chose silence. It wasn’t his fault.

The last corridor opened into a gaping, dome-shaped cavern, with a ceiling so tall it may as well have been the starless night sky.

A narrow pathway circled the outside of the pit, where we took up our sentry position.

The two Vigil members we relieved nodded dour goodbyes.

Beneath us scurried the Women, wobbling along their cavern floor, back and forth doing Gods know what, like devious mice scampering to secrete their stolen cheese in that special, special spot. They did this all night, every night, one wall to the other, over and again without pause, save for when they would pass us by. Luke and I sat perched above them, atop a sheer stone wall perhaps two houses high, where we watched their bewildering work, as we were taught to do.

Stewards for the Ladies of the Dead.

Luke always sata ways off from me. I preferred to keep my bow out, strung up, and when the Ladies approached I’d fit an arrow to the string. I’d train my arrow on their black eyes, eyes that looked like a single giant pupil. The Ladies of the Dead wore owl masks over the top half of their faces. Their noses were the owl’s beak, and the owl’s eyes had been hollowed out so their own dead gaze could peek through. Their mouths hung free, though, deformed things, with teeth twisting around and in upon themselves like rose petals. Crooked yellow teeth, far too long, jutting from their pouchy lips.

The Ladies would take turns shambling up to Luke with their hunchbacked walk, and they would stop before him, and they

would point. They’d point at Luke with fingers thrice as long as my own, crooked, disjointed things. The nails were stained black and brown and a stale buttery yellow, and grown so long they’d begun to curl. When they pointed at Luke I examined their elongated, sloping foreheads, skin dark gray and moist. Their putrid smell curled up to my nose, sour, stinging. A grimy black clump of hair sat upon each of their heads, a single mass of decomposing filth, trailing down their horrible backs to drag along the floor. A few rogue tendrils peeked above the whole, protruding like drowning hands. When they pointed those horrid fingers at my companion, they laughed, a hacking sort of cackle, and their owl masks bounced upon their bulbous faces. Thank the Gods it is not me, I thought to myself every time they pointed at my companion, scornful with their prophetic laughter, my barbed arrow tip trained upon their swollen eyes. Thank the Gods.

Over the course of the night I’d lose count the number of times they’d pay mocking homage to Luke. No real pattern or order governed the manner by which they’d approach us. It seemed random to me, even after all these years. And Luke, poor stalwart Luke, would simply return their black gaze. If it was me, I would scream, or loose my arrow, or run until my lungs burst. Brave Luke was doing his duty.

Earlier in the day I’d had to intervene for Luke, again. He’d been buying a haunch of cow carcassfrom the local butcher when about a dozen village children surrounded him. At first he’d raised a half amused eyebrow, but then the children, in an unsettling display of unison, each raised a finger, and pointed at Luke.

I’d never heard Luke scream before, but when he did, it filled me with both sadness and fear. It began as a low cooing noise, al-

most as if he were too frightened to force the air from his throat. But the cry gained strength, until he screeched a ragged, raw, throat-tearing howl. He dropped his meat on the dusty stone and fled. And the children chased him, a sea of gray robes, pointing their accusing fingers at Luke’s retreating back.

I sprinted after them, and thrust myself in the middle of the cruel game, swatting down their poisonous fingers. For the rest of the day, I couldn’t purge the image from my mind. Luke’s eyelids had peeled back further than I thought possible, until far too much of his eyeballs were exposed. His lips had pulled into tight, bloodless things. His fingers had dug into the flesh of his own hands.

Poor Luke.

“Thank you, for your help today,” a tired, quiet voice said, interrupting my thoughts. I tried not to show my surprise, half-turning to my friend. “Sorry they did that. I wish I could have stopped them.”

Luke shrugged, only his face visible in the torchlight. “You’ve been okay. Far better than most. To the others, well, I serve only as a reminder. A reminder of what they might have been. What they could become. At least I’m still alive, still human, to you.”

Cringing, I felt blood rise to my cheeks. I could have done far better. “You’re all right, Luke. Who knows how many years you still have?” I tried to make my voice hopeful. I half succeeded.

“Yeah.” He shrugged again. “Or it could be tomorrow.”

“Are you... how do you deal with it?”

Luke didn’t answer for some time. The whisper and shuffle of the Ladies’ dragging hair and ragged, soiled robes teased my ears.

“I don’t, really,” he finally replied. “In the end, I’m just the same as you. We’re all marked, eventually.”

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The words felt cold, and I glimpsed my nightmares.

Luke rose to his feet. I didn’t pay much attention, figuring he was giving his arse a break from the rough stone. It wasn’t until he began a jittery, tip-toeing step towards the pit’s edge that I became alarmed.

“You okay, Luke?”

Instead of replying, he stepped closer. The way he moved disturbed me, reminded me of a child making its doll walk.

“Stop it,” I ordered, rising to my feet with the thought of restraining him. But I couldn’t make myself go towards him, even found myself shrinking further away.

Silence filled the cavern. Heavy, suffocating silence. For once, the Ladies stood still. And Luke stepped over the edge.

I thought I’d hear him hit the floor. Instead, the Ladies began to shriek. A cacophony of banshee cries bombarded my ears, clawing through my skull until I couldn’t form a coherent thought. I found myself at the pit’s edge, watching as they took him.

The Womens’ mouths stretched wide, wider than the breadth of my arms, and for some reason I pictured myself curling up inside those humid jaws. I saw dozens of those horrid, gaping maws, filled with innumerable teeth and pink, soggy throats.

As a single entity, they dropped onto all fours and adopted a sickening trot, like a horse nearing the end of its life. They lumbered towards Luke’s body, bouncing along in that broken canter with what seemed like glee, their yawning jaws nearly scraping the floor. At first they just circled him, dancing on all fours, their festering, disproportioned bodies swaying in grotesque circles. A sort of demented waltz. I stood transfixed, hoping they wouldn’t take him, yet praying for it to end.

Finally, they pounced, covering him, still

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screeching their horrible, deafening song, and they devoured Luke.

I collapsed to the floor, unable to watch any longer. Curling up on the stone, I hugged my knees to my chest and covered my ears. And I screeched, too, fitting right in with the chorus.

I don’t know how long passed before I realized the noise had stopped. People were moving around me, and someone helped me to my feet. My vision was foggy, and I wasn’t certain if I was actually awake. Two men from my village supported me between them, until my head cleared and I could stand on my own.

The Women wearing owl masks hobbled back and forth across the cavern floor below, as if nothing had happened. Every single person from my village had come, and formed a ring around the brink of the pit. Hundreds of pale, gaunt visages directed their forlorn eyes towards the Ladies. Waiting to witness the next selection. Some mouths moved in prayer. One of the children who had chased Luke tried to hide behind her mother’s dress, and buried her face in the ragged cloth.

The crones formed a great line, at least forty of them, perhaps a hundred. Their yellow beaks stabbed towards me, and their rotting teeth curled into something resembling a smile. They shuffled closer, hunched over, dragging their rubbery arms along the ground.

Terror cloaked me, a second skin embracing my own flesh, merging and melting into my pores until it was inside me, and I became dread. Hot tears leaked down my cheeks.

Chortling behind their owl masks, the Ladies raised their arms, and their clawed joints wavered, wavered, before finally settling on their next chosen.

Drift Creek Falls daniel watkins

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Biology Lesson

aubrie loden Butterflies don’t even need to try for people to notice them And when they are seen, they’re chased.

Protected.

They can’t help it, but oh do they know it.

Our eyes are just drawn to butterflies.

Feather light with bodies slim and equipped for flutter flight, Just a breeze pushes them to the next new thing Butterflies can’t be caught in the rain A single raindrop can tear them down.

But not to worry; It’s a crime to see a butterfly on the ground.

Its not long before someone notices, And halts their day to see how they can make it fly again.

Their existence in their entirety brings people magnificence and distraction Who wouldn’t want to have a butterfly on their arm?

The same cannot be said for a moth.

When seen, moths are ignored, if not swatted away.

They cant help it, but oh, do they know it; Our eyes just don’t agree with moths.

Thick and powerful, with bodies built durably for hard conditions, Almost nothing can keep a moth away from the light.

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Moths are driven creatures, They have not known what it is like to be wanted or chased They pay no attention to rain when it beats their wings, Or the wind pushing them around They’re used to it.

Someone going out of their way to pick them up from the ground?

Moths have never known such luxury.

Since they are so sturdy, they should be able to get themselves up.

Right?

They know that if they are to live in this world as a moth Your existence is to be efficient - contribute to the ecosystem, And not expect to be greeted by delight or admiration When they land on an arm.

In this world, beauty is your only strength.

And while built to last, Moths seem to not live nearly as long as butterflies

Waves

eric callahan Growing up in Reno, I spent my time dreaming of the ocean. Our ranch wasn’t very big, the land was big enough, but we had only a few cows and an old steer with brown spots and irritable eyes; remnants from my Grandfather, who lived off of his cattle. My father works construction though, and while he was rising through the ranks to a middle management position, the herd wilted. Me and the leftover beef would sit on the edge of our property, stare in between the three wires that made a fence, and watch out over the salt flats. Pure white. Endless white, even though I could see the far side where brush and yellow grass rose from the parched dirt, what I really saw were waves, falling at our fence. I assembled the ocean puzzle from movies and photos, and then I watched it form in front of me, blue springing from the salt and rolling out white. Now in the tomorrows of my life, after work dad and I come home and I sit by the three-wired fence, with just the steer, and I try to remember how to see the ocean.

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Untitled

catherine fitzsimmons

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Lean

ethan heusser Seconds are syncopated.

I was walking with a limp, legs an oxbow river bend, when the bass drum of my calfskin heart reimagined. Rain became a tap dance and stoplights turned blue in their jazz-wanting. My directive, fallen out of frame favor smelled fever in this burlap skin and left.

Still I can tap knocks on rocks longer and longer the echo, while bad ness is still extraordinary and baseballs are still pitched in Fahrenheit.

The zeitgeist of awakenings told me its name, the shadow of its name is violets and it has strapped too many earths to its canvas back, this face is a jar of our gods like the mason cage I put my poems in once I saw objects repeat objects.

Still this night, Still, this night,

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Remember That Place in the Woods? bree gillespie

There is an ugly grey shed Where our footprints used to linger A bright red pickup Where you broke your arm Twelve (Or was it eleven?)

Summers ago See, even I lose track of it Because I can no longer see that part Of the woods that was ours A private little Dirt patch Where we became pirates and Soldiers and Rock stars and Scientists and Friends.

But that was a long time ago When your mom lived next door Before your dad left Before your house became empty Before we got new neighbors Before they filled that empty spot And covered the remnants of us.

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Untitled daniel held

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Long Way to Go, Kid

skye lyon Ease yourself into the stillness of my tongue, it bares to name the meaning of my story, in full, lacking censorship – losing the greatest sense of ownership even in the smallest of things.

Each night, these words, my beliefs, are repeatedly misused and inverted, time and time again in the textbooks of academia, the roar of sleepless media, so tell when, my sheepish friend, will this ignorance ever come to an end?

Maybe then you can define the fine lines that create the complexity of a lonesome me, a mixed blood me, a ruthless me, the All-American, “come all ye faithful” me.

I am someone more than a mere categorical persona.

My life cannot be flat lined in a nation that gave me the right to be a part of the greater good, who birthed me onto bloodstained blades of grass out in the golden plains of a supposed free world.

To the finite ends of the Earth, this land was given to not only me, but to my people – in a fury of sound and silence laced in between the forgotten languages of my great grandfather and his father before that.

Generations fragmented into the history books like run on sentences chopped jaggedly in half, giving no sense to the definitive kind of sense any of these haphazard words

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even mean anymore.

No longer are wars waged between you and I, hundreds of years have reformed us in ways unbeknownst to outsiders, however, during November’s muted hell, I can still hear my people bellow out from the carnage, wheezing strange words through pierced lungs – black from molded vile and erosion – gargling with every syllable spoken as the wind carries their chant: Cheechako1 Cheechako Cheechako!

Tillikum2 or cheechako?

Who is to say?

Assimilating into a new you, is the only way... so the pale immigrants say.

Still, December nights find me astray, mislaid along the Willamette, consumed by the heat of ire and confusion.

A fusion only inflicted by this supposed free world who are set out against us. Our own brothers who were born with a rifle in hand out in the golden plains.

So tell when, my foreign friend, will this ignorance ever come to an end?

Chinook jargon - newcomer (emphasis on second syllable) Chinook jargon - friend; also means people, (emphasis on first syllable), sometimes pluralized but not required.

1 2

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Decisions

mitchell buechler My mother doesn’t love me.

I can hear everything she says regarding my existence inside of her.

Most of the time she’s talking to a man and the word, “Mistake” comes up frequently.

How it all was a drunk decision and nothing more, that I’ll just be another one to her.

She talks of the pain in her stomach from me, but when she created me it was pure happiness.

What am I to do?

This place I call home is dark and warm, but I know it won’t be mine for much longer. She won’t be mine for much longer.

I feel myself begin to deteriorate within the walls.

Soon I will be nothing to this woman I have called my sanctuary.

My chicken, rice, beans, cheese and sour cream insides begin to melt away into the abyss.

The last thing I hear from her before vanishing is, “Damn Chipotle, never again”.

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Untitled

alexandra may

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Flesh

ethan heusser Come, let us be as animals let us lope over the earth in a distant chain let us bray like bone-husks for we leave nothing left to be desired Sure, we are watched we are watched very closely but always from a distance, the watchers are one by all videophiles gripping tightly their lost freedoms This moment - It’s not real.

In three hours it will be a fading emotion.

In three days it will trouble you as you wake from a deep sleep, and in three more it won’t have happened at all.

But I can only move on so many times.

Soon there won’t be any corners in my mind to run away to, any corners to run away from.

Soon our lost dungeon will be the only one, forever bubbling, tickling the surface, nibbling like suggestions like cultivated aftertaste like the carnal oneness of our bodies like flesh.

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Predator

yuheng zhao

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Dancer

eric callahan Rain rushes, falling hard and bursting. It watches the ground rise up and sees nothing else.

But snow sees the ground and the sky, hears the chime of winds and dances while it can.

Taking the stage above frozen rivers and mountain spines, the flakes dance in flurries or alone, roaming where clouds will take them, drifting beauty.

Cascading down to valley and ridge in their joyous waltz, snow floats unbridled from side to side, bumping and playing when others might fear a storm.

That is what I love about snow, there is no hurry in its fall, the ground is inevitable, summer unstoppable, and so crystal flakes dance while they still fly.

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Lizards

michael henry lonie A Sonnet in the Herpetological Style Three little lizards, dark, all in a row What kind they are is what I want to know.

Four larger lizards are less dark I see, Are they the same? It really puzzles me.

The three smaller, darker.

The four lighter, larger.

Are they the same species, all blue bellies?

How much difference differentiates species?

The three lived higher on the mountain than the four.

The same species, dark scales protect from UV more, They’re smaller because of colder temperature.

A hypothesis, I did not test it, for sure.

“How much variation makes species different, O professor?”

“Good question,” he said, and said no more.

Fearless

lauren freeman “Fearless,” he said “Fear Less,” she said.

But why am I fearless, He wondered.

Do I have fears?

Do warriors fear me?

And she said: You are who you are, Fearless or not.

If you choose to be so, Then that is you.

But I fear less, Because I believe more.

And you are fearless Because you believe in yourself.

And he said, That is why I am fearless.

Yet sometimes I have fears.

I am afraid of the fire, And you fear only the lion.

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Untitled

evelyn janet kritler

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Untitled

gregory heinonen

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On the Growing of Potatoes ethan heusser

Some where a rucksack quivers; noses root in soil, mute organs of expression.

I am also lost, in search of ancient treasures rumored long ago in the darkness & the deep.

I am sifting dust with preconceptions of mud.

Some time fathers and the mothers of fathers were farmers here as well, living before me dying behind me at once at home with salt flats and the tang of ocean-swell And as I sit here, trawling through the brain-matter that grounds our living day, I too am lost in wonders.

I thought I found them in this boneyard but it was only you, You who live in homes and in fields, children of migrant earth You who laugh lustily at the tipped white-caps of frost You who outnumber the numberless and inspire death with your dreaming You who breathe

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Hangnail

aubrie loden

Sometimes when you bite your nail, it breaks off.

And you desperately try to fish with your teeth for that tiny stub Jutting out in the crevice between your red, puffy cuticle and your nail.

It annoys you all fucking day, until you can get back home, Dig around your room for some tweezers, Grasp that little bit of nail, And pull.

Then stop because you notice that it’s carrying up your finger Taking way more tissue with it than it should Fuck.

What are you going to do now?

If you cut it, you’re left with basically the same situation, just higher up on your nail.

If you keep pulling, the wound is only going to get bigger.

So you keep pulling.

You can’t pull it fast, because you don’t want to make it any worse.

The tip of your finger starts to get really hot.

Pimples of crimson ooze from where the side of your nail used to be.

They get larger, connect, and start travelling, and making a huge mess.

So you run your finger under water for a few seconds, hoping it stops Then you try to distract yourself with something else, something pretty.

Only to find you got blood on that too because the water just amplified it.

So you sit back and try to think about how this whole fucking deal started, And how this tiny thing has taken up so much of your emotional expenditure.

At this point your whole finger is throbbing.

And there’s nothing you can do but wait.

That’s how you made me feel.

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Untitled

kody kirkpatrick

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Todd

shanna roast

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The Dying of the Year (October 2015) michael henry lonie

The dying year, the shortened days, they wound my soul as years do flee.

The mists of time devour the nows, the real, the precious moments lived, that weave the warp and woof of lives.

The trees for Winters fast prepare.

The dying year, the shortened days presage the Winters onrush, cold.

Winter rushes, Spring comes slow.

Comes there a Spring I shall not see?

Tis fate and what must be must be.

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The Reincarnation of Kurt Cobain

skye lyon

Don’t ask me where the sun beams end, this air has always been seedy, and the salivating blonde man working a liquor store counter savagely staring directly into your mud honey eyes can only give you a bruised lipped grin instead of a wine cooler, and sometimes the most beloved pubescent novellas end where the star lights begin.

The answers remain the same: why do we still fail?

Maybe these stanzas paint a mural of optimism lost. Lovers, a pious cavity, a cherry wood Victor 45, we stand alone in a corner brooding over the lot.

Stand right there, do not move. take me.

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Lauren

catherine fitzsimmons

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Colchuck Lake Yuheng zhao

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Contributor’s Notes

them, scan them and frame them. Every blurry, poorly executed, and unplanned image says more than you can imagine. I am proud to say that I have over 100,000 images accounted for; stored on multiple hard drives and in stacks of boxes. Every image documents a time, a feeling and a memory. Do not delete an image or throw away a print, because you will never know what you might forget until you remember. Keep nicholas browning It’s been a truly lovely experience to be a shooting. part of this magazine. I hope my stories have provided some enjoyable entertainment and vedanth narayanan brain ponderings. Thank you so much for Computer Science I am an energetic person who is devoted to reading! making people smile. Lover of the PNW, a good cup of coffee, and Instagram (@veefdaniel held aceswest). My free time is spent listening to English; Senior Dabbler in photography, writing, painting. music, running, and investing time in my Voracious bibliophile and 007 enthusiast. photography.

Fan of Gothic literature, Sherlock Holmes, and a good Manhattan. Montana born and michael henry lonie raised, but now a EXPLOregonian. Favorite Microbiology quote: ‘No bird can soar too high, if he soars I am what you might call a nontraditional student. I used to work as an auditor, but with his own wings.’ -William Blake. decided to make a career change, so I went back to college. My new career seems to be hallie sutton that of a professional student. Studying hisDigital Communications, Photography; tory has always been my hobby.

Junior Stop - Take a deep breath - Take a picture.

What you document today, will be worth more tomorrow. Save every photo – print Shanna Roast Art and Education; Junior Photography started out as a hobby of mine, but has turned into a passion. Since falling in love with photography, I have found beauty in things I used to overlook, done things I would never have tried before, and learned more about myself in the process.

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gregory heinonen Public Health; Freshman As a break from studying, I enjoy exploring various creative outlets specifically pottery, photography, and graphic design. I enjoy photography because it gives you the ability to reflect back to specific moments in time, something few other art forms can. aubrie loden Public Health Hello! I’m a Public Health Major with a double minor in Communications and Business.

I also sing T- Pain with the OSU A-Cappella team Divine, and I enjoy going to country dances with my friends. Being featured here is an honor, Thank You!

lauren sue freeman Liberal Arts; Sophomore I live here in beautiful Corvallis. I am a Sophomore in the Liberal Arts program, I like to read, write poetry and short stories, walk a lot, listen to music and go to the movies. I can’t say what my five favorite songs are, because I enjoy all kinds of music, and they all seem to be my favorites. ethan heusser English; Sophomore I owe a big thanks to the rest of the Prism team for putting together this term’s edition of the magazine! Also, thanks to all of my friends and to the Creative Writing Society for reading my work and offering feedback.

mitchell buechler Senior yuheng zhao I rhyme words with words in my free time. Business; Sophomore SoundCloud.com/official_androck I was born in China lived there for 10 years.

My hobbies are flying, surfing, photography, Top 5: and any adventure related activities. I am a 1. Midnight OG (Welcome to the City) sophomore here pursuing a degree in busi2. Memento ness. My top 5 songs will probably be Man 3. Androck X Androck of The Year, Forgot About Dre, Alchemy, 4. Party on 6th Ave. amorphous, and Fire Squad.

5. Chemdawg skye lyon jynwaye foo Liberal Studies; Senior Environmental Science; Sophomore For years now, I have battled with the best, Art is easier done than said. now it is about time, in 2016, you delve into a deeper sky. Cheers to this brave new world.

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zahra mohammad alnaser

End of the Day

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“‘Tis fate and what must be must be”

michael henry lonie "The dying of the year (october 2015)," page 34